In Retrospect
by daynaa
Summary: Calleigh centric, vague in the sense that you can decide which pairing it is. Sort of about finding yourself  love.


A/N: I am going to try to make this a one shot, or at least refraining from posting until I am almost finished. I don't know how this is going to turn out, it's mostly all based on how I feel while listening to Konstantine by Something Corporate. Amazing, just amazing. It makes me want to just create something beautiful, it's such an inspirational song, ahha anyways.

Disclaimer: I don't own CSI: Miami

Okay, after I have written the majority of this, it's really vague, like, barley related to Miami at all, more of a background scenario for Calleigh.

ALSO, there are no pairings in it. There are, but it's so vague, it can be whomever you would like it to be.

--&

_And I don't understand all the things you've seen,_

_But I'm slipping in between_

_You and you're big dreams._

--&

It was in these windows of realization that you were ready to declare yourself crazy. Not crazily beautiful, or crazily brilliant as others seemed to see you, but crazy. And you are, in these windows where emotions past your control controlled you. But you don't have anyone left to tell. Maybe that's why, but it's not going to change the fact that everyone else has moved on. No one else has these moments in which they want to shout at anything about the state of their mind or lack thereof, no. And no one else wants to cry every time they go to school, walking down the hall like nothing has changed when really, nothing's the same. No one else stays up for days wishing they could change things or get these ideas out of their head before encountering a moment of realization and crying themselves to sleep. No, it only happens to you because you're crazy.

--&

You used to sit up and wonder why he left. Working past the answers that seem now so mundane to the thoughts of where he is now, and if he is thinking of you. You only mention the last part, really, because of your mother, and your friends. Comments like, "How could he _not _miss you?" Or "He'll come back eventually, I bet." They plague your mind constantly, the haunting fact that you used to be _that _girl. You still have your sun-kissed blonde locks, picture perfect smile, your flirty nature and your accent, but the sparkle is gone, the innocence lost. Because when your childhood best friend turned teenage lover is there one day, and disappeared the next, he takes a piece of you with him, and really, you figure you're lucky when he could have taken so much more. Instead he left you with a head full of questions and self doubt and half of a heart. You only mention that last part because of them. You're sure he's dead, and you seem to be the only one. You don't know how they live each day with hope that he'll come home, hope that he'll show up. He would have called; he would have found some way of telling you. That's what you do when you love someone. He had to be dead, couldn't they see?

--&

And you lost count of the days as time went on and before you knew it, it was high school graduation. You were without a date and not for lack of trying on the part of others. The disappointment seeding from this, you're pretty sure, outweighed how proud your mother was of you for being valedictorian. Some things never change. But as you saw her crying on your father's shoulder from the third row you couldn't help but think that you'd done something right, that from that mess of four years, through the tears and depression, the guilt and the blame, the emptiness inside of you that you weren't sure would ever leave, through all the shit he put you through, not only did you still love him, but you still emerged on top. Your father was sober and smiling, and your mother was leaning on him for support, literally of course, but you couldn't help but see it as a symbol of hope for the future. And as you finished your speech, it wasn't just your mother. You couldn't find a dry face in the auditorium aside from your own. You knew your speech was beautiful, and masterfully written, but it was because of him. They were crying because of him. Whether it was out of pity or celebrating the fact that you'd seemed to have overcome the implications of him leaving, either way it was because of him. It was then that you realized that here, in this town where you'd grown up, where nearly all of your memories with him lay, you would never overcome him. You would never move on. And so you left.

--&

At University, you were far more invisible than you'd ever been allowed to be at home. You still got the stares your physical appearance warranted, but no one _knew_ you. They didn't know about him. You came to terms with the fact that live has to go on the night you left. Driving along the highways alone at night, you imagined you were him, leaving alone, only you were going to come back. You weren't as cowardly, as mean, self centered, but neither was he, leading you back to the point you'd stop arguing to others years ago at the insistence of well, everyone you argued it to. He was _dead._ Logically, it was the only explanation for his disappearance. In fact, you had based your life up to even this moment around the fact that he was dead. Certain that he loved you the way you loved him, you know that he wouldn't have left you alone like you are alone now. He wouldn't have been satisfied with the fact that you didn't know where he was, that he didn't know where you were. He was always a little jealous, but you admitted to hints of jealousy on occasion yourself. But he needed you as you need him, and no one would choose to suffer this much on their own. If he were alive, he would come back to you. He is dead.

--&

Through the years you've found the visits to your parents house entirely too painful. Their waiting for you to fall in love combined with the memories that are lurking everywhere you look because there's nowhere in this town you haven't been with him. You barley take note of the fact that on the rare occasion that you talk to your mother, her attempts to get to you to visit are half hearted, at best. She just wants grandchildren now, or maybe her daughter back. Which she wants more, you're not sure. Either way, you decide, in a conversation with her one evening, she wants you to be happy. You tell her about a man you've met to placate her before exchanging pleasantries and making promises of seeing each other soon that neither party intended to make good on. Over the years you've been on dates. Granted, you were far from interested in the men falling over themselves to impress you, but they were dates none the less. All without feeling, and in your opinion, without reason. They were not him, and they could never be what he was to you. Only tonight, you weren't talking about another date lacking interest, but of your new best friend. You knew that he wanted more, but as you grew closer to him and he learned to understand you, he would see he didn't want you. He would see.

--&

You jogged in this park every morning, and every morning it was sunny because some things are routine and predictable. Only today, your phone rang and as the unfamiliar ringtone of your childhood phone number made its way to your ears, you picked up on the first ring. He was dead. You tell your father that he's crazy, just as you once told yourself you were, as he repeats the line at your request his voice all full of sorrow and age as it had been for years now. You laugh and tell him that he's been dead for years, but despite your laugh, the hurt still reverberates in your stomach, your chest, the empty whole where half of your heart used to reside. And as your father tells you of how he just met with the boy's mother and how she is a wreck and wishes you would go home and grieve with her, you try not to hang up. He died. Died, as in recently, just now. As in he didn't love you and need you in the way you loved and needed him and he actually just _left. _Your running slows to a stop as you snap your phone shut. And the audacity of his mother, assuming you would still need to grieve. They should have listened to you all of those years ago when you told them he died and they wouldn't be surprised now, would they?

--&

You run to him, your best friend, and you tell him how you were right. How all along you were right. And he gives you a pitying smile and tells you he's sorry for your loss. You've never known him to be so formal and it's then that you see he sees this as his chance for you to love him. He tells you that you're beautiful and you find yourself blushing despite the feeling of emptiness inside brought on by confirmation of _his _death. And you scream at him, "Why Me! Why do you do this to yourself? I can't love you. I am incapable of loving you and the way you won't give up makes me tired. You make me tired." But it's the look in his eyes when he gathers the pieces you've become into his arms and the way he whispers your name with a gentleness you've never known before he tells you that his purpose is to make you see yourself that convinces you that maybe you could love.

--&

Your life had changed again, differently this time. You're a smart girl, and you can see who meant more in retrospect but the teenage anxieties and general lack of knowledge that accompany the age and title prevented you from seeing clearly and you realize now that you've lived your whole life wrong. It makes you wonder, when because of him, you let your family drift away from you, you let everyone drift away from you, and yet if someone asked you when exactly he left, died, whatever it was he had gone and done, you would tell them that it had been fifteen odd years. When asked how long it had been since your mother passed away, you would tell them that it had been three years, two weeks and five days. You can't change anything now though; it's all behind you now.

--&

And as life spirals onward, you look back and you realize that without _him _you were sent into a fit of disarray, without _him _you managed to go on despite the empty whole where half of your heart used to be. But without him, without your best friend, the man you're growing to love, you would die. It's as simple as that. So when you date him, kiss him, marry him, it's not going to be to avenge anyone. To please anyone. For the very first time in your life, you're stepping out into the unknown on your own. There will be no more ghosts, no more questions. Momentarily your eyes fill with fear at the realization of how big a development this is to take at your age with your experience and history. And you continue to be intimidated until he takes your hand, and together, you walk towards a better future.

--&

_A__nd I'm __sleeping in__ your living room,_

_But we don't have much room_

_To live._

_--&_

A/N: So I hope everyone enjoyed it. Haha I just spend the last two and a half hours writing this when I should have been doing my math homework. Math makes my head hurt, and this makes me head better haha, because I have too many ideas right now so I need to get some of them out. Anyways, I would love reviews: )! Thank you for reading.


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